By Dan Ambrose: After IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) finishes taking care of his fight against Willie Monroe Jr (19-1, 6 KOs) on May 16th, Golovkin would like to fight either Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
It doesn’t look like Cotto will be agreeing to fight Golovkin. The fighter that Golovkin thinks will eventually fight him is Canelo. Golovkin doesn’t say when he thinks the 24-year-old Canelo will fight him, but he thinks he will.
“Of course I want to fight [Cotto], he’s a legend, a big name for me,” Golovkin said via the latimes.com. “Canelo’s the guy who will fight me.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about Canelo fighting him, at least not anytime soon. Yes, Canelo will probably fight Golovkin one of these days, but that might not take place for years. Golovkin is 32 now, and it’s possible that Canelo will wait him out until Golovkin is 36 or 37 before he opts to fight him.
If he can get Golovkin when he’s old, it would definitely give Canelo a better chance of winning the fight. Right now, I think it’s out of question that Canelo will agree to fight Golovkin. I don’t think Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya would let that fight happen.
If you look at the guys that De La Hoya is putting in with Canelo, guys like James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo, it doesn’t look at all likely that he would give green light for a Canelo-Golovkin fight.
Canelo did fight Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara, but those were fights that Canelo insisted on taking, and he arguably lost to Lara and fought to a draw against Trout. With De La Hoya not bringing up Golovkin’s name, and Canelo talking about him either, I think it’s not logical to assume that we’re going to be seeing a Golovkin-Canelo fight in the near future.
One of the things that makes Golovkin much different than the guys that Canelo has been facing lately, besides in the talent department, is the power that Golovkin has. It’s one that that Canelo is getting beaten by guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr and out-boxed by guys like Lara and Trout, but it’s a different story if Canelo was to get knocked out by Golovkin.
Canelo likely didn’t lose a lot of boxing fans after his fights against Lara, Trout and Mayweather, because the fights weren’t the full distance in going 12 rounds. But if Canelo were to take a beating in the process of getting stopped by Golovkin, then he could lose a lot of boxing fans. That’s why I don’t see De La Hoya letting Canelo take that fight against Golovkin, because De La Hoya is building up Canelo to be the future of boxing and the guy that takes over after Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao retire. As long as De La Hoya is careful in how he matches Canelo against, it increases the chances that he’ll become the guy that takes over for those fighters.
If Cotto decides to refuse the fight with Golovkin, which seems likely, the WBC will have to make a decision whether to strip Cotto of the title or just let him fight whoever he wants rather than his WBC mandatory Golokvin. The chances are that the WBC will strip Cotto, and then let Golovkin fight the next highest ranked contender for the vacant WBC 160 pound title. In that case we’ll see Golovkin fight either #1 WBC Jorge Sebastian Heiland or #2 WBC Tureano Johnson.
Cotto will be the one that gets a fight against Canelo, possibly by the end of the year.
Golovkin visited the Wildcard gym this week to see Pacquiao, who he’s interested in facing. The 5’6” Pacquiao looked tiny next to Golovkin, and it seems unthinkable that the two of them would face each. Golovkin said he’d come down to 154 to take the fight against Pacquiao, but that probably wouldn’t be low enough.
Pacquiao, his promoter Bob Arum, adviser Michael Koncz and Freddie Roach would all likely insist that Golovkin melt down to 147, and possibly even lower before they’d agree to fight him. The weight would be so low that Golovkin would likely be too weak to fight.
Asked if he’d seen Golovkin fight, Pacquiao said “Not really.” This is similar to what Roach has been saying. Roach has said that he never sees Golovkin fights being televised on HBO, even though he’s fighting four times a year on the network now.
Golovkin will need to stay busy and keep defending his titles and wait and hope that Canelo will eventually fight him. Fighting Cotto out of the question, but maybe someday Canelo will fight him. Hopefully it won’t be when Golovkin is an old man. In the meantime, Golovkin will stay busy and win over the U.S boxing fans without the help of a big fight against Pacquiao, Mayweather, Canelo or Cotto.
“Willie is tough for me because he’s a southpaw, younger and is a tough guy,” Golovkin said. “All champions have had problems with southpaws, and the good ones are champions like [former middleweight champion] Sergio Martinez and Pacquiao. Floyd has had problems with southpaws, ‘Canelo’ had a problem with [southpaw Erislandy] Lara. This is a big test for me.”
Golovkin has said that he’d like to go the full 12 rounds against Monroe in order to improve his boxing skills. But it’s hard to believe that Golovkin will like his long 19-fight knockout streak end at this point. He’s probably going to be trying as hard as he can to knock Monroe out in this fight, because he’ll increase his popularity with each knockout that he gets.
Beating a guy that is just there to survive like Monroe will be doing, it’ll make Golovkin look much better. He’ll need to cut of the ring on Monroe and throw to the body a lot because Monroe will be making it difficult to hit him in the head due to the movement he’ll be doing. Monroe takes a good shot to the head, but this is going to be a different situation for him because he’s likely to be hit with really hard body shots each time Golovkin catches up to him.
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